Dusk (BL Light Novel)

“This one turned out perfect!”
He beamed brightly, grabbing my arm in excitement. Honestly, the timing hadn’t even been that hard. And he couldn’t get that right?
“You tone-deaf or something?”
“I am not! I just kept fumbling because I had to sync the skill timing and the screenshot button at the same time!”
Jaegyung huffed defensively, scrunching his brows, but the annoyance melted from his face the moment he looked back at the screenshot. He couldn’t stop smiling.
Then, with a hesitant glance, he spoke up again.
“Um… could we take a few more?”
“More?”
I asked, wondering what else he had in mind. In response, Jaegyung started listing off skills and describing scenes he’d been imagining. Listening to him, I couldn’t help but wonder—how did he even come up with this stuff? He hadn’t actually tried them out before, but it was like he could see it all in his head.
He only asked for four different scenes. That much, I could handle. So I nodded.
He immediately lit up, smiling like a kid who just got extra dessert.
From there, I became the designated photographer. I moved around as needed, retook shots when something looked off, and tried to capture what he had in mind. With how happy he looked, I couldn’t bring myself to half-ass it.
Meanwhile, Jaegyung kept feeding me sotteok-sotteok—skewers of sausage and rice cake. Thanks to that, I got to snack while taking screenshots. The taste? Basically what you’d expect: chewy sausage, sticky rice cake, and that sweet-spicy-savory sauce.
But then, after all that effort feeding me… he got beat up.
Because when I finally snapped out of screenshot-mode and checked the tray, everything was gone. Not just the skewers—the takoyaki, the chicken, everything had vanished into my stomach.
All of it. In my belly.
And the guy responsible for that just smiled, rubbing his arm where I’d smacked him, and asked, “Did it taste okay?”
Like hell he didn’t plan that from the start.
Ungrateful bastard. Was the whole “can’t time the screenshot” thing just an act too?
I was furious—but I couldn’t exactly stop helping him now. I’d only realized what happened after we’d already finished all the screenshots. I was such an {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} idiot. So focused, I hadn’t even noticed what was being shoved into my mouth.
For a second, I considered deleting everything—but the memory of how happy he looked kept me from doing it. Besides, I’d put in real effort.
In the end, I settled for giving Jaegyung a solid flick to the forehead. One day I’d get my revenge—if he ever complained about something, I’d bring this up.
Ignoring his mumbling over the flick, I shoved the wrappers to the side and sat back down, ready to play for real. Both our characters, Honeybread and Retaking a Class, had fully healed while we were busy taking screenshots.
Before we started fighting, I laid out a few temporary rules.
The floating island was big enough to fight on, but one wrong move—or a knockback—could easily send us flying off the edge. Sure, we were fighting to win, but having it end that fast would be boring. This wasn’t like the arena where you could respawn.
So:
Rule one: No knockbacks.
That just meant we’d each seal off one skill. Not a big deal.

Rule two: No flying for me, the Viajok.
Ateliena was a no-flight zone by default, but some race-specific regions nullified that. For Viajok, this floating island counted. Normally, it was so Viajok could attack Jeojajok aerial bases.
But I wasn’t raiding anything—I was just here to play-fight with Jaegyung. So it only made sense to keep it fair and not fly. That was the second rule.
Rule three: No evasive skills.
This one was a handicap I gave myself for Jaegyung’s sake. His escape skill covered a long distance—if he used it, he could literally fall to his death. Since I had more evasion options, banning them worked in his favor.
“I feel like I’ll forget and accidentally use a knockback…”
Jaegyung mumbled while buffing and doping up for battle. I felt the same. It was so easy to slip and use a skill out of habit, especially when you weren’t consciously thinking about it.
Jaegyung always calculated every move, but I played on reflex. Even when I knew I shouldn’t use a skill, my fingers sometimes moved faster than my brain.
As we prepped, our chatter tapered off. We started circling each other, tapping movement keys, testing spacing.
No countdown. No cue. Just like always—it began naturally.
No knockbacks. No evasives.
I kept repeating that in my head while watching for an opening. Jaegyung stepped left, then suddenly pivoted right—and that’s when I threw out a Capture.
That pivot usually caused hand-fumbles and lowered movement acceleration, making it a prime window to strike.
Sure enough, it landed. Jaegyung was stunned.
First hit: mine.
I reeled him in and unloaded a combo, then instinctively used Shield Block, predicting he’d counter with a defensive skill.
But I was wrong. Jaegyung took advantage of the block delay to cast a DoT instead.
Neither of us said a word—we were fully locked into the fight. Dodging, baiting, predicting. Mind games and raw skill.
But this time, one thing was different… I was watching his screen.
I glanced over, checking where he moved his mouse. In Dusk, your camera direction equals your character’s facing direction. I followed his screen movements and shifted Honeybread to target Retaking a Class’s right flank.
Dusk had a handedness and weak spot system.
If a character was set as left-handed, they took more damage when hit on the right flank, and vice versa.
Normally, it was nearly impossible to aim for that—people’s movements were too erratic. Unless they were stunned, it just wasn’t worth targeting weak points.
But if you could see their screen?
“...Are you watching my screen? The way I rotate?”
Jaegyung’s voice was a mix of disbelief and offense.
He’d caught on. The weak point damage must’ve tipped him off.
“Hmm?”
“You’re aiming for my flank based on how I’m turning the camera, aren’t you?”
“I dunno what you mean~”
He flailed his mouse in protest, spinning his camera wildly. His POV twisted so much the terrain blurred and the UI blurred—at this point, you couldn’t tell up from down.
But that just blinded him. I grinned and focused on my screen, ready to punish.
Except… even while flailing, he was dodging just fine.
Strange. He shouldn’t be able to see my attacks.
Then it hit me—he was watching my screen too.
“You’re watching mine, huh?”
“Seems to be working, doesn’t it?”
I wasn’t gonna let him one-up me. I started whipping my own camera around, turning our fight into a blind mess. At this point, neither of us could see anything—it became a contest of who could land hits by dumb luck.
Only one thing was clear on either screen: our HP bars.
Mine was higher, obviously.
I’d landed more flank hits at the start, racking up damage.
But there was a threat: Jaegyung was a healer.
Sure enough, he cast a non-channel healing skill. Those were unpredictable—I had no way to counter unless it got interrupted by a status effect.
Which it didn’t.
But Jaegyung couldn’t spam them either. He was using Jo-gun, the "humble guy" persona, so stacking too many heals built stress. He couldn’t dump everything in one go.
If he wanted more HP, he’d have to channel a real heal.
And that was my chance.
Channel bars stayed fixed on the UI no matter how much the screen shook. So when I saw him start casting, I instantly hit a status effect skill.
“Ah.”
He let out a frustrated grunt as I interrupted the cast. Satisfying.
His HP was tanking fast now.
Retaking a Class was nearly at zero, while I still had over half.
This was already my win. With the healing locked down and my earlier flank hits adding up, even if he tried to use some clutch Mutation Virus Extraction skill now, the HP gap was too wide.
“Wanna just give up?”
I grinned, suggesting surrender.
Jaegyung snapped back.
“I still have HP left!”
“I could just lick it off.”
“I’ll produce more from the bone marrow, so hold on!”
It meant: he was gonna try another heal.
Yeah, no.
Right before I stopped flailing my camera, I landed a stun.
Once I confirmed it hit, I froze my mouse and went in for the kill.